Nancy Bastille applies heat to her team’s ice sculpture during the international ice-carving competition.
Amid the glassy goddesses and howling wolves depicted at Winterlude’s annual international ice-sculpting competition, Swede Nancy Bastille stood alone as the only woman not carved from ice.
Of the 28 sculptors teamed-up into 14 pairs, Bastille was not only the sole female carver, but the first woman to compete at Winterlude in at least six years, says Tom Pitt, a 24-year Winterlude ice carving veteran from Winnipeg.
Bastille, a Swedish teacher participating in her first ice sculpting competition, is one of the few women in ice carving, a field Pitt says is filled mostly with men.
“After coming to Ottawa since 1988, I’ve maybe seen one women’s team,” Pitt says. “I’ve seen a few women compete over the years in all the competitions I’ve been to . . . But it’s very few and far between, unfortunately.”
Bastille is new to ice sculpting. She has an artistic background and sometimes makes models out of clay, she says. But it was her boyfriend and carving partner, Kee Gawah, who introduced her to the activity about a year ago.
Bastille and Gawah interpreted this year’s pairs competition theme, northern legends, through a sculpture they called “A Stroll in the Dark.” The piece was comprised of a dream catcher with large feathers being circled by wolves, some of which are howling from a rock.
“Two wolves (are) fighting. The other is calling. So, it means they will go out hunting for the night,” she says.
Children examining the statue from behind a rope barrier couldn’t stop chattering about the furry creatures depicted in the ice.
Though she was exhausted after finishing the sculpture, Bastille says she is proud of how it turned out. As a new carver, one of her biggest challenges is learning on the fly, she says, but the competition was so physically demanding that she went straight back to her hotel for a rest as soon as it was over.
Carvers had 30 hours to complete their work. It’s a physical challenge that includes moving the 300 pound blocks of ice used to create the sculptures and manoeuvring power tools, Pitt says.
Carvers have to possess the physical strength to shift the blocks up and onto a lift, he says, adding the physical aspect can hold some women back. But he says he’d love to see more women carvers.
Though Bastille has only been carving for a year, she says she has yet to run into any other female carvers. In her experience, the physical demands of ice carving do pose added challenges for women, she says.
“You have to be really well-trained, otherwise, you won’t be able to walk the day after (the competition),” she says.
Regardless of the physical difference, Pitt says female carvers are great competitors because they’re often very artistic.
“I’d carve with a woman any time, and the reason why is they’d learn how to lift the ice quicker and smarter than us,” he says.
Julio Martinez, a carver from Mexico, who also competed in the international pairs competition at Winterlude, says women are often more creative than their male counterparts, making them better at discovering creative ways to move the heavy ice.
Martinez teaches ice carving in Mexico.
He only knows of one female ice carver in his home country, he says, and she’s one of his students. He told her that she would have to work extra hard to meet the physical challenges of carving, such as lifting ice and working with chainsaws, he says.
As long as female carvers are in good shape, there’s no reason why they can’t participate, even if they aren’t as strong as men, Martinez says.
In the future, he says he’d like to bring his female student to Winterlude.
“I want a team from Mexico (at Winterlude), but only women,” Martinez says.
After Winterlude, Bastille went back to her normal life in Sweden. She says she hopes to return to Winterlude once she’s had a bit more practice.